Do we have FREE WILL?
Some sources claim that God knows, in advance, everything that we shall do, including what we shall think. If this is true, can we really be held accountable for our actions? If there is a heaven and a hell to which we will be assigned after death, the "believers" to heaven, where they will enjoy eternal happiness; and the "non-believers" to hell, where they will be tormented by its flames and suffer eternal agony, then is God being fair? If he knows beforehand that one person will be a "believer" and will end up in heaven to enjoy eternal bliss, and another person will be a "non-believer" and will end up in hell to suffer eternally, then how can persons be held accountable since God's will must be implemented or come to pass? Is it that we are assigned, either to heaven, or to hell, from the moment of our birth, or even before that, since God knows everything? Then, how can we have free will?I wish to elaborate on the terms "believers" and "non-believers", on which the claim of assignment to heaven for believers and hell for non-believers is made, in this blog.
John 3:16 (NKJV)
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
John 3:18 (NKJV)
“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."
Acts 16:31 (NKJV)
"So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Romans 10:9 (NKJV)
"That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."
It should be clear from the above quoted verses that the term "believe" refers strictly to believing in Jesus(or the name 'Jesus') and not believing in God (in the general sense that may be common to all religions) as most people probably do. It is a belief in "Jesus", and no one or nothing else, that will qualify a person for heaven. This applies even if a person may have lived and died long before the birth of Jesus, and most certainly have no knowledge of him or his name.
Comments (28)
It's a cosmic joke that the "believers" will end up in heaven after a lifetime of preaching and judging the ones who don't follow the same god/religion
Questions (as you well know) that the enlightened ones cannot even seem to answer...(maybe because there are no answers).
Ah well maybe time for another bible reading
What you say makes a lot of sense, and to me was a very complex question to make sense of.
Your question leads me to think about what is our purpose in life. If you believe in reincarnation, maybe we live this life to be tested with our free-will or even shown what results from our free-will. Edgar Cayce believed that we needed to hit a certain level of enlightenment before we could move on spiritually. Until then, we were reincarnated back here....or something like that.
Maybe everything is predestined but it takes many lives to reach full enlightenment. It is something that our spirit needs to figure out on its own? Each life we live gets us closer and closer to that enlightenment.
I think if it was easy to figure out, we would have known by now. I think sometimes, we are suppose to know, what we are suppose to know. :)
Great blog Soc.
Thanks for your input. I heard someone say that the only thing that you can be certain of in life, is that you have to die sometime. I like the way you put it, "the day you are born is the day you begin to die".
Thanks for your input. I have attempted to clarify the use of the term "believing" in an addition to the blog. Please, see the addition.
The requirement for accessing heaven is primarily believing in Jesus. Being a good person is not the focus. Some may argue that being a believer goes along with being a good person (through action). I would question that based on my observation of the actions of some "believers".
Thanks for your input.
"Because we've free will we're 100% responsible for everything that happens to us."
You could not have expressed your position more clearly.
Thanks for your input. You are right. I am still waiting for satisfactory answers to my questions.
Thanks for your input.
"We are free to act, the conscience(the dormant soul) observes the acts and passes the judgement, graphically displaying the new birth....when fed up with the repetitive processes if you opt to get out the show....you can...entirely always your choice."
Can you please elaborate on your comment, especially the last part,
"....when fed up with the repetitive processes if you opt to get out the show....you can...entirely always your choice".
How can we opt to get out the show?
God says,"Noah what doest thou doist?"
Noah replies while continuing to dance says,"I am dancing Lord".
God replies,"Why doest thou dance Noah?"
Noah answers, "You are going to kill me lord because I have sinned. So if I'm to die then I wish to die dancing".
God begins to laugh and says, "Oh Noah but thou do delight me, you are forgiven!"
Does this story not prove that God does not know what we are going to do? If we did not have free will and were preprogrammed robots, then what would be the point for God? How could we ever inspire and please him?
Nice to see you. I hope you have been keeping well.
As to the second part of your question...
I think it is helpful to distinguish between what is necessary to believe in all ages and what is necessary to believe today.
Why do we have to separate the two? Because of progressive revelation. Because when God adds a new revelation we're responsible for it, just as when the government adds a new law your responsible to keep it, once it's promulgated. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
So in the process of revelation God has revealed more in the content that is necessary to believe today.
What is necessary to believe in all ages...
1. Human depravity (you wouldn't come unto God if you thought you can do it on your own, so it implies depravity). Romans 3:11-18.
2. God's unity (your coming unto God , not small gods, but God).
3. Necessity of grace (you must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder to those who earnestly seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).
4. Necessity of faith (trusting that God can save us and accepting His free gift of salvation).
So if you ask me to give the universal content of the gospel, what people have to believe in every age and every stage and every dispensation? There's nobody anywhere at any time who didn't have to believe that they were sinful, that there was one true God, that grace was necessary and expressed their faith in that!
What is necessary to believe this age, right now?
According to the New Testament four more things you need to believe today...
1. Christ deity.
2. Christ humanity.
3. Christ atonement.
4. Christ bodily resurrection.
In other words, There is one God, we are sinners, Christ is God, Christ is man, Christ died for our sins, Christ rose from the dead, we are saved by God's grace, and we must believe that Christ did this for us.
Good questions my friend. God bless you!
It's the illusion of free will that makes the detached individual feel accountable to his/her actions - a delusion that is necessary for the vast majority to deal with life and not regress into a childlike state. Religion is an example of such pro-functional delusion, and to suggest any free will at all is certainly a religious notion as of 2014.
Thanks for your input. By definition, omniscience is an attribute of God; this implies that he knows everything. One is free to accept this idea or even the notion of God.
"It's a scare tactic that was created by so called believers of God, so that people would sin less."
When religion held a greater sway over people than it does today, the idea of "burning in hell for eternity" may have been a more powerful deterrent against certain actions(sins) like murder and stealing than the laws of the state.
According to Psalm 139:2, God knows our thoughts even before we think them. Some thoughts may lead to certain "sinful" actions that may eventually lead to "the fires of hell".
Thanks for your input. I respect your view.
Thanks for your input.
"FREE WILL is the ability to make choices unconstrained by certain factors, (Wikipedia dictionary)".
The issue here is: Is it possible to for a person to make choices outside of God's will? If it isn't, then is it really free will in the true sense of the term?
"On the presentation you used for believers going to heaven as opposed to those who don't, go to hell, is wrong".
My statement that believers go to heaven and non-believers go to hell is based on the following verses from the Bible:
John 3:16 (NKJV)
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
John 3:18 (NKJV)
“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."
Heaven is associated with everlasting life, and hell is associated with condemnation.
Thanks for your comment.
You have raised some very interesting issues with respect to our purpose in life. They are worth examining in a future blog.
The focus of this blog is to examine the issue of an individual's free will in the context of God's will being an overriding factor.
Thanks for your input.
I tried searching for the story of Noah dancing in the Old Testament, that you mentioned, but could not locate it. I viewed Genesis, Chapters 5 to 9, which deals with Noah.
Could you please inform me where, in the Old Testament, the story is mentioned?
Anyway, it certainly shows that God has a sense of humour.
"Does this story not prove that God does not know what we are going to do?"
Interesting comment!
The way each person interprets Bible stories can vary and TheDoctor has the point when he took example of m**turbation that is proven to be healthy.
To me; God is mysterious universe -always in process of new discoveries and acting with good intentions, pursuing positive -healthy transcendency in relation to others is more important to find "heaven on Earth" which leads to find peace with yourself.
The second part of my question was:
"Can you tell me, please, how a person can come to know the name "Jesus", and view him as the only means to obtain salvation, especially those who lived and died in those parts of the world thousands of years before the birth of Jesus?
There is absolutely no way those peoples could have had any knowledge of Jesus.
I looked at your response but it does not answer my question.